Three members of a Lodi family who ate so-called death cap mushrooms are hospitalized in intensive care in San Francisco, officials said Thursday.

The mushrooms, formally known as Amanita phalloides, are among the world's most lethal. They are starting to sprout in the Bay Area because of the recent rains, presenting a particular risk to immigrants who mistake them for harmless varieties found in their native countries. Even experienced mushroom gatherers have been fooled into believing death caps to be edible.

The three family members hospitalized since Tuesday night at California Pacific Medical Center declined to allow hospital officials to give out personal information or talk about their condition, other than they are all in the intensive care unit. The hospital would not say how the three are related or where they picked the mushrooms.

The immediate danger they face is liver damage, which if left untreated could lead to death. "Eating wild mushrooms such as the death cap can result in severe and rapid liver failure, requiring liver transplantation or a lengthy hospitalization," said Dr. Carrie Frenette, a liver specialist who is treating the patients.

According to California Pacific, the death rate for people who consume the mushrooms is around 10 percent.

One person died last year in California after eating death caps, according to the state Poison Control System. In January, a family of three survived a poisoning after they returned from a mushroom hunt in Mount Tamalpais State Park and cooked the fungi in soup.

In that case, doctors at UCSF obtained a waiver from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the victims with an organic compound derived from milk thistle - one of the few known antidotes to death caps - that was air-freighted to the hospital from Germany.